Earth 65's Spider-Woman Gwen Stacy balances her hero career with family and band relationships!

On Earth 65, instead of a radioactive spider biting Peter Parker, the arachnid chomped down on his classmate Gwen Stacy. Granted the proportionate strength of a spider, plus enhanced reflexes and Spider Sense, she patrolled New York City as Spider-Woman!

Dubbed Spider-Gwen, she first appeared in EDGE OF SPIDER-VERSE #2 by Jason Latour and Robbi Rodriguez and helped save existence which launched into her own series by the same crew!

Edge of Spider-Verse (2014) #2

Instead of worrying about balancing her schoolwork with super heroics, Gwen couldn’t seem to find the balance between her band The Mary Janes and the masked life. Crazier yet, when she came face to face with her father, Captain George Stacy, she unmasked and revealed her true identity to him!

Things got all the more complicated as super villains started trying to kill Captain Stacy and people began asking more questions. They even brought in Lt. Frank Castle to help take down Spider-Woman and figure the whole thing out.

Like her 616 counterpart, Gwen faced off against the likes of The Kingpin – though not in person at first – as well as The Vulture, The Rhino and even Matt Murdock, who’s an evil mob lawyer in her reality!

However, two of the most heart-wrenching foes Spider-Gwen faced came in the form of the Lizard and Green Goblin. See, after she got her powers, her pal Peter Parker became obsessed with Spider-Woman. Wanting to be special himself, he injected himself with a serum that turned him into the Lizard during prom. Gwen jumped in to stop him, but wound up seemingly killing the young man.

Meanwhile, another longtime friend, Harry Osborn, disappeared after Peter’s death. When he returned, he fully blamed Spider-Woman for Peter’s death. To get his own revenge, he created the Green Goblin suit for himself and orange-themed robots to kill her. She finally stopped his rampage – which was aided by some of Peter’s own formula – and revealed her identity to him.

Spider-Woman’s adventures continue in the pages of SPIDER-GWEN as she contines to deal with problems in her own reality as well as a few that connect to the 616.

A Tangled Web

As mentioned above, Spider-Gwen debuted during the Spider-Verse event. Ms. Stacy worked with Peter Parker and Spider-Woman from the 616 among many other spider-folks to stop Morlun and the Inheritors from destroying the web of life by killing all of the spider-folks in all realities. From there she joined up with a group in the pages of WEB WARRIORS featuring Spider-Ham, Spider-Man India, Spider-UK, Spider-Man Noir and Anya Corazon. Though she’s still based on Earth 65, Gwen has crossed over with SPIDER-WOMAN and SILK in the Spider-Women story and also started up a relationship with Miles Morales!

Next week we shine the spotlight on Miles Morales and his post-Secret Wars adventures on Earth 616!

Meet the Heroes of the Spider-Verse in Web Warriors #1

Protect the multiverse with a new team of webslingers illustrated by David Baldeon!

Defending the Spider-Verse by any means necessary! Marvel is pleased to present WEB WARRIORS #1, the new ongoing series from writer Mike Costa and artist David Baldeon!

Following the events of Spider-Verse, multiple realities were left without a Spider-Man of their own. Victims of Morlun and the Inheritors. But those worlds still need protecting, and it’s up to a new team of wallcrawlers to swing in and save the day. Spider-Gwen! Spider-Man Noir! Spider-Man India! Spider-UK! Spider-Ham! Together, they are…the Web Warriors!

From their home base on Earth-001, if your world needs help, they’ll be there! But when Electro threatens all of reality, this newly formed team will be pushed to their very limits. Is their mission over before it’s even begun? Find out this November as this universe-hopping team of webslingers makes their debut in WEB WARRIORS #1!

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Get Tangled Up in David Baldeon's Web Warriors Sketchbook

Published Oct 13, 2015
By Tj Dietsch

Web Warriors pencils by David Baldeon

Take an exclusive first look at the exploits of Spider-Gwen, Spider-Ham, Spider-Man Noir, and more!

Mike Costa and David Baldeon plan to play with characters of all shapes, sizes, and dimensional orientations in WEB WARRIORS. The book carries on the adventures of a variety of Spider-based characters from the Spider-Verse eventand Secret Wars series.

The first issue not only kicks off with an homage to the 1960’s “Spider-Man” cartoon, but also closes with the shocking reveal of a portion of Electro’s master plan. Between those major events, Costa and Baldeon weave a tale featuring the pan-dimensional arachnids Spider-Gwen, Spider-Girl, Spider-Man Noir, Spider-Man India, Spider-Man UK, and Spider-Ham.

We talked with with Baldeon about balancing a variety of super looks, developing alternate versions of well-known characters, and how Spider-Ham fits into it all.

Marvel.com: The cast of WEB WARRIORS features a lot of different body types and costumes. Have any of them offered more challenges than the others?

David Baldeon: In a way they all have, but they have easily turned into chances for character development rather than challenges. A good deal of the fun of the book and of the way Mike Costa is writing it is how every character plays against all the others, and the ways they are different from each other. Mike plays that great in the script, for instance matching their different senses of humor and their different approaches to being heroes, and particularly, Spider heroes. In my part of the job, that means I have to make those differences [show] through to the reader by using any tools the art allows, beginning with the very shape of their bodies. There’s not one single repeated shape in there, and that’s a great advantage. Each design has a lot to say about who each character is and how they behave. I just have to run with it.

Although I’ll admit that the devil is in the little details; [in] Noir’s goggles, for instance. I wanted those to have a very particular look that set them a little apart from the Spider eyes in everyone else’s costumes. So, again, I wouldn’t call them exactly challenges. Plus on the other hand, I get to do cartoony style, and a flatter, more design-y style, and more classic super hero style, and playing-with-shadows-and-black-patches style and all in the same book. And all that knowing that Scott Hanna’s inks and Jason Keith’s colors are going to make those pages look impossibly good.

Marvel.com: All of these characters also have pretty specific costumes. Was there ever talk of doing team uniforms?

David Baldeon: Not really. They do have a uniform of sorts, though. Their Spider-duds are all different but they are all iterations of the original Spider-Man design, so it is a team uniform in a way. And I’d say that their keeping their own costumes plays better into the notion and dynamics of this team. That said, designing spider-gear would be a great challenge!

Marvel.com: Spider-Gwen blew up in popularity pretty much from her first appearance. How is it drawing her already beloved costume?

David Baldeon: It’s one of the many pleasures of the book. Gwen’s design is very, very cool, and probably one of the best iterations of the Spider-design ever. Every single element of the classic costume is there, but treated in such an intelligent way, design-wise, that it feels completely new. It is an instant classic. And it moves great. It does not always happen that good looking designs work well when you put them in motion within the page, and you have to have the characters act in them—or through them, when they cover the whole body. But the Spider-Gwen costume is one of those that work great from every shot, in every pose. It’s an excellent piece of design. And most important, the character that wears the costume is great, and makes me want to treat her acting in a completely different way than, say, Anya.

Marvel.com: Is it ever difficult making Spider-Ham fit right in with his human counterparts?

David Baldeon: Here’s the thing: it should be but it isn’t at all, and all the merit of that is in Mike Costa’s script. Each character has a very distinct voice and demeanor and Mike plays them against each other masterfully. Ham being Ham, he plays against—and with—the other members of the team exactly as he should, and does so effortlessly. I only have to take the dynamics depicted in the script and draw them as naturally as I can, because none of the characters are going against their core traits. So it is not difficult at all, it just feels natural that Ham’s there and behaves and looks as a cartoon character. And by the way, Ham’s voice in my head is Bruce Willis’, ever since the five page preview in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1!

Marvel.com: The first issue looks like it kicks off in the world of the 60’s Spidey cartoon. How fun was it playing with those character designs?

David Baldeon: We do have an opening scene in that parallel, yeah. And it’s…tricky. The moment you add a little too much, the style and, most important, the visual joke are completely lost and all you get is a set of poorly drawn villains. So it was hard to keep the line and the style and the models while making the pages work and the reference clear. Hopefully, we have managed to make it look good. There’s a nice contrast between our heroes and the 60’s cartoons, and everybody will be happy with the opening. I sure am!

Marvel.com: What was the Electro re-design process like? Were there specific elements of existing costumes you wanted to keep or avoid along the way?

David Baldeon: Endless. Yes, you try to keep one or two leitmotivs in the suits, at least at the beginning, but we have so many alternates prowling around in the pages that at one point you just play it wild and trust the concept. If it’s there and sparkles it’s an Electro, and we might as well have fun with it. And there are no limits! I think I have a pterodactyl Electro somewhere in there and I have promised myself I’m going to get me a Tesla Electro in some background because c’mon, Tesla Electro. But the core ones, the plot carriers, need to be recognizable and they all have a nod to the classic Electro look, in one way or another.

See how the inter-dimensional Spider-Folks stack up against Electro in November 11’s WEB WARRIORS #1.

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Weaving the Web Warriors

Published Sep 22, 2015
By Tj Dietsch

Web Warriors #1 cover by Julian Totino Tedesco

Mike Costa and David Baldeon reunite the multi-versal Spider-team!

Oh what a tangled web Mike Costa and David Baldeon weave in WEB WARRIORS. The November-launching ongoing brings together a variety of alternate reality Spider-Heroes to safeguard those who cannot protect themselves across multiple universes.

Following the Earths-shaking events of Spider-Verse and Secret Wars, some dimensions find themselves without an arachnid-themed hero to keep them safe. That’s where Spider-Gwen, Spider-Girl, Spider-Man Noir, Spider-Man India, Spider-Man UK and Spider-Ham come in.

The team’s first mission will pit them against a villain that Costa says hasn’t quite gotten his big time story arc and will prove to be more than a threat: Electro. But don’t expect the green and yellow wearing criminal to run around zapping people; this time around, he’s threatening all realities.

We spoke with Costa and Baldeon about bringing this diverse group of characters together, their mission and the fun of working with so many Spider-Folks.

Mike Costa: Super hero comics emerged from a proud tradition of relentless optimism, unbridled imagination and—the part most often forgotten today—deep and abiding joy. And there is no more powerful joy-delivery system in super hero comics than Spider-Man. The entire core of the character is taking tragedy and fear and turning it into laughter and victory.

What appeals to me about the Spider-Verse concept is that it’s the kind of concept that can exist only in super hero comics. It distills the wild, spinning galaxies of continuities and complications into a single idea, as easy to understand as it is bugnuts insane: there are an infinite amount of Spider-people protecting an infinite amount of worlds and we’re going to try to have adventures with as many of them as possible. As far as I’m concerned, I am writing the platonic ideal of super hero books here. If I can make each issue even half as fun as that concept sounds—and a fraction of the fun David makes it look—then I’ll be doing something really special.

Marvel.com: What do you think it is about the Spider-Man mythology that makes it so versatile as to spawn an entire series of multi-dimensional versions each with their own interesting twist?

Mike Costa: Everybody loves Spider-Man because, ultimately, Spider-Man is you. He’s anxious and unsure and worried about his family and whether the person who he likes likes him back and how he’ going to deal with his jackass boss, and every other mundane problem that feels, day in and day out, like an epic battle. And those are the real battles in Spider-Man’s life, the super villain fights are just window-dressing. The story of Spider-Man is a person who, despite having a lot of problems he can barely manage, tries to be better because he knows he has to be. He’s our best self.

It’s an indestructible concept, because it’s fundamentally honest. Like Shakespeare, it can be recast and restaged in countless ways because it’s unbreakable. There have been lots of Lears and a hundred Hamlets. Of course there billions of Spider-Men, there are billions of us.

Marvel.com: What can you tell us about the Web Warriors as a team? Do they have a specific goal in mind?

Mike Costa: Their goal is pretty simple: they’re a collection of heroes watching over worlds that have lost the heroes of their own. But their job ends up being a lot bigger than they anticipated and most of their adventures will take them across multiple worlds. Good thing there’s a lot of Spiders to call in as cavalry.

Marvel.com: In WEB WARRIORS you’re dealing with Spider-Gwen, Spider-Girl, Spider-Man Noir, Spider-Man India, Spider-Man UK and Spider-Ham. Can you say a few words about some of them and why they were so well in the framework of this team?

Mike Costa: Spider-Man UK functions as the team leader; he’s the one with the most training and the tactical skills. But he’s also the one most invested in the mission [since] his own world was destroyed during the events that lead to Secret Wars, and so he is literally a man without a home. This team he’s created is, literally, all he has, and that’s going to create some interesting emotional dynamics going forward.

In the broadest strokes, India is our genius and Noir is our resident “scary guy,”—the kind of guy who can make morally gray choices—and the fun will be to deepen those characters, characters who have only really had a dozen issues between them, beyond those brief sketches. They both come from very different worlds than the rest of the team—except probably Ham, but he’s just a bizarre wildcard—and their points of view are deeply informed by their drastic differences. Each has their own problems fitting in.

And finally, Spider-Gwen is the closest thing we have to a POV character. Out of all of them, she’s the most “traditional” super hero: a girl who puts on a suit and goes out to fight crime, then goes home to live her life. In the first issue, she bonds with Mayday Parker of the MC2 universe over that shared experience. In a very real way, the two of them have the most in common on the team, even as their personalities are incredibly different. Mayday isn’t entirely sold on the idea of the team, and going forward their relationship will be one of the most crucial in the book

Marvel.com: David, how is it putting your own spin—no pun intended—on these characters that already have such specific looks?

David Baldeon: It’s actually easier that it would seem, because there’s such a solid design base there. Not only [do] they have specific and well recognized looks, but they have had a lot of exposure lately with Spider-Verse and Secret Wars, so they’re pretty fresh in the minds of the readers. And they’re fantastic designs! Luckily, there’s still a lot of wiggle room to play. Little nuances like the shape of the eyes in the masks for instance, or bigger nuances like the bodies’ shape and form, can do the trick when it comes to getting the handle of the characters, design wise.

Web Warriors #1 cover by Julian Totino Tedesco

But the real thing, like most of the times, comes from the script. Mike is giving each one of the Spiders very distinctive flavor. His dialogue, particularly, talks worlds about how each one of these characters are their own person. So my spin, really, is to get those flavors through to the readers and make them behave as they talk. And the book itself is so fun and flexible that, even within the “limits” of the characters’ looks, there are so many things to be done, down to toying a bit with the art style for each of them to body language to those little design nuances.

Marvel.com: You two are dealing with alternate realities galore. How has it been designing some new versions of familiar characters and places?

David Baldeon: It’s a lot of work, but it is so much fun! I get to go crazy on some of the best designs and characters in the Marvel Universe! Plus, I’m a sucker for reference work and every now and then you find a little gem that you really, really want to use and that you would not be able to with the [Marvel Universe] versions of the characters. A traveler’s cloak from the 15th century that looks like it was designed for the Hobgoblin, for instance. It is such a huge playground and I’m looking forward to trying out as many crazy cool ideas as I can, even if it’s just in one little panel.

Mike Costa: Honestly, I leave that up to David. I can only wish I had his visual imagination. In issue #1, we visit the “Forever Yesterday” universe [from the original run of NEW WARRIORS], in which ancient Egypt was the power that colonized the world. I did hours of research, pouring over back-issues for reference, reading up about what various colors represented in Egyptian antiquity to build out the world, generally trying to look really deep and impressive. Then David comes in and brings so many ideas to the page, and develops them so effortlessly, that I enter into a shame-spiral, and retreat from friends and family while I question my value as a writer and a human being. Then I begin a research project on the next world I want to introduce and that is the punishing cycle of the professional writer.

Marvel.com: The Web Warriors find themselves facing off against a wildly popular version of Electro. How does he threaten reality?

Mike Costa: Well, I don’t want to give too much away, but my point with making Electro “wildly popular” is because he’s never really felt that way in the comics. But I’ve always loved that character, both because I think electric powers are cool and also because I love the fact that Max Dillon is, at his heart, just a dumb criminal. He won the lottery getting his powers, but he’s not trying to take over the world, or exact vengeance on people who wronged him, or attempting to better himself in any way. He just robs banks like a numbskull, yet somehow he’s in the upper-echelon of Spidey’s rogues gallery. By all rights, he should be down there on the D-list with Boomerang and the Trapster.

There’s never really been a truly great, classic Spider-Man story built around Electro. He’s in a weird twilight zone where he’s too uncomplicated to have his own “Kraven’s Last Hunt” or “Death of Gwen Stacy,” but too big a name to have been included with the losers in the awesome SUPERIOR FOES OF SPIDER-MAN book. So I’ve decided to plant my flag here. For better or worse, I’m telling the ultimate Electro story; the only story, probably ever, where Electro actually does stand to threaten reality. I don’t want to reveal too much more, other than it’s a story that could only be told in WEB WARRIORS. It’s just that crazy.

Marvel.com: Will WEB WARRIORS pick up any other themes and threads from the overall Spider Verse story?

Mike Costa: Obviously, Spidey UK talks about his plans to put together a team to protect the Web of Destiny in the final issue of the Spider-Verse event that ran through AMAZING SPIDER-MAN last fall. So that’s definitely our launchpad.

But one of the things that [editors] Nick [Lowe and] Devin [Lewis] and I have talked about is that we want this book to look forward. If you can grasp the concept of a bunch of alternate Spider-heroes protecting the multiverse, that’s all you really need to know. No back-issues necessary.

That said, the inciting incident of our first story does have its roots in the Spider-Verse crossover. Specifically, we see a previously-published scene from a new character’s perspective. But it’s a subtle thing, and if you haven’t read the Spider-Verse crossover—though, really, you should, because it’s awesome—you won’t be lost. It’s just a fun little Easter-egg for those who have.

Marvel.com: Do you have particular favorite alternate versions of Spider-Man you’re hoping to work into the series down the line?

Mike Costa: The weirder the better, really. I’ve always loved the Japanese Spider-Men, particularly the one from the Tokusatso TV series with Leopardon, the gigantic robot. But I’d have to find a really good reason to bring him in. Much as ‘’d like to make the comic an endless parade of random Spider-Men, without solid plot of character reasons it would fall apart pretty quick. We’re definitely going to be visiting a ton of different worlds and meeting a lot of different Spider-Men—and –Women—but we want to make sure we’re always doing something new and interesting with them, and using them in the story in unexpected ways.

David Baldeon: There’s not a single character in this book that I’m not a fan of. I was looking forward to using Spider-Ham in the book, for instance, but then I found out that one of my favorites to draw is Gwen Stacy when she’s in her civvies. Mike writes her so well that getting to make her act to those dialogues is a pleasure So I’m in for the surprises, which is one of the best things of a book like this: the certainty that just any of the alternates—heroes or villains—is going to spring out of anywhere and get to be a favorite to draw. Or well, you know, Samurai Spider. That would be awesome.

The November-launching WEB WARRIORS #1 by Mike Costa and David Baldeon pits Spider-Gwen, Spider-Man UK, Spider-Ham, Spider-Man Noir and Spider-Man India against Electro! Swing back to Marvel.com and our social channels for the latest news on All-New, All-Different Marvel!